It thawed out enough today to do a depth test at a semi frozen freshwater beach erosion cut using the Axiom with 13X11" Mono coil, GPX 4000 with Coiltek Elite 14X9" Camo Mono and Deus 2 9" DD coil.
I wanted to see if the pulse induction Axiom and GPX 4000 using similar settings and similar sized coils had similar performance. This is important to me since the Axiom is the new detector on the block and it sure is a joy to operate and swing. No worrying about craning my neck to see the GPX front and back panels, worrying if I have accidentally bumped a toggle switch and in the case of the 4000 with no backlight.....trying to see what the display says and then getting strapped in for the ride. None of that is necessary with the Axiom. All the controls are right in front of me to easily see and manipulate and the ergonomics are off the chart good. But how is its performance on deep coins and is that transferrable to deep jewelry, relics and deeper gold nuggets?
Deus 2 was mostly along for the ride. I needed it to check for ground mineralization and to clear the test area of obvious interfering targets. It did its job so I ran it through the test targets knowing full well that it would not do that great since it is a VLF and was using a 9" round coil.
The test was on a 0.5 gram Burundian 14K gold coin, a 5 gram US nickel and a 5.75 gram US quarter (a high conductive target)
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I dug three notches about 2" into the cut that these targets could easily fit into. I made one notch at 9" from the surface/swing area, a second notch at 13" and the deepest notch at 18". The Fisher F-Pulse pinpointer in the photo is 9" long.
Iron mineralization was pretty high using the Deus 2's iron mineralization meter (lower left display bar graph). You can actually see the black sand on the surface of this beach and in some of the photos.
I started with the Axiom using its 13X11" mono coil using the Normal timing/Slow speed with sensitivity on 3 as 4 was just a little unstable for the EMI and ground conditions. Ground balanced easily and stayed fixed. Threshold was just audible.
I tested the 0.5 gram gold coin at 9" depth. The Axiom with 13X11" coil had no problem giving a text book high/low fairly sharp audio response on all sweeps. It wasn't loud, but it was easily a no doubt Dig Me type signal for me. Raising the coil an inch or so and the target response became very iffy.
Next I tested the 5 gram US nickel at 13" depth. The Axiom responded with a solid, sharp, text book high/low response on all sweeps. Again, these responses were not loud, but they were very obvious, no doubt responses.
I moved the 5 gram US nickel to the 18" notch. The Axiom responded with a smooth, broad one way low/high response swinging from right to left. The response swinging from left to right was much shorter and mostly a higher tone. I could have mistaken this response for shallow ground noise, but since it was very repeatable I probably would have dug that target.
The US quarter at 18" had a similar but fainter response. Digging that target........maybe.
I then did the same tests with the GPX 4000 running in Normal/General/Slow with gain on 10 and with the threshold barely audible. The Coiltek Elite 14X9" Mono coil was very quiet after doing a frequency scan and ground balanced easily and stayed that way throughout the testing.
The 9" deep 0.5 gram gold coin sounded sharper on the GPX. The response was high/low as expected but it was a bit more clearly defined and obvious than on the Axiom. Digging that response all day. Raising the coil about 1" resulted in a very iffy response.
The 13" deep 5 gram US nickel also sounded a bit sharper and clearer than the Axiom, but the overall high/low response actually seemed to have less volume/signal strength.
The nickel at 18" did not have a broad response like the Axiom. It was very short and faint, but clearly something under the coil. Much softer response than the Axiom.
The 5.7 gram US quarter had a similar response at 18" with just a quick rising tone above the threshold.
Deus 2 using its 9" coil running FMF Goldfield, no Disc IAR, sensitivity 95, reactivity 2, audio response 4 could barely hit the 9" deep 0.5 gram gold coin and I mean barely. Without headphones, I would not have heard that response or even looked at the display for a possible target iD response. Understandably, it could not hit any of the deeper targets. No mode could hit them. I expected that so no surprise.
Once again, the Axiom really held its own against a fine pulse induction detector like the GPX 4000 setup similarly.
I wanted to see if the pulse induction Axiom and GPX 4000 using similar settings and similar sized coils had similar performance. This is important to me since the Axiom is the new detector on the block and it sure is a joy to operate and swing. No worrying about craning my neck to see the GPX front and back panels, worrying if I have accidentally bumped a toggle switch and in the case of the 4000 with no backlight.....trying to see what the display says and then getting strapped in for the ride. None of that is necessary with the Axiom. All the controls are right in front of me to easily see and manipulate and the ergonomics are off the chart good. But how is its performance on deep coins and is that transferrable to deep jewelry, relics and deeper gold nuggets?
Deus 2 was mostly along for the ride. I needed it to check for ground mineralization and to clear the test area of obvious interfering targets. It did its job so I ran it through the test targets knowing full well that it would not do that great since it is a VLF and was using a 9" round coil.
The test was on a 0.5 gram Burundian 14K gold coin, a 5 gram US nickel and a 5.75 gram US quarter (a high conductive target)
.
I dug three notches about 2" into the cut that these targets could easily fit into. I made one notch at 9" from the surface/swing area, a second notch at 13" and the deepest notch at 18". The Fisher F-Pulse pinpointer in the photo is 9" long.
Iron mineralization was pretty high using the Deus 2's iron mineralization meter (lower left display bar graph). You can actually see the black sand on the surface of this beach and in some of the photos.
I started with the Axiom using its 13X11" mono coil using the Normal timing/Slow speed with sensitivity on 3 as 4 was just a little unstable for the EMI and ground conditions. Ground balanced easily and stayed fixed. Threshold was just audible.
I tested the 0.5 gram gold coin at 9" depth. The Axiom with 13X11" coil had no problem giving a text book high/low fairly sharp audio response on all sweeps. It wasn't loud, but it was easily a no doubt Dig Me type signal for me. Raising the coil an inch or so and the target response became very iffy.
Next I tested the 5 gram US nickel at 13" depth. The Axiom responded with a solid, sharp, text book high/low response on all sweeps. Again, these responses were not loud, but they were very obvious, no doubt responses.
I moved the 5 gram US nickel to the 18" notch. The Axiom responded with a smooth, broad one way low/high response swinging from right to left. The response swinging from left to right was much shorter and mostly a higher tone. I could have mistaken this response for shallow ground noise, but since it was very repeatable I probably would have dug that target.
The US quarter at 18" had a similar but fainter response. Digging that target........maybe.
I then did the same tests with the GPX 4000 running in Normal/General/Slow with gain on 10 and with the threshold barely audible. The Coiltek Elite 14X9" Mono coil was very quiet after doing a frequency scan and ground balanced easily and stayed that way throughout the testing.
The 9" deep 0.5 gram gold coin sounded sharper on the GPX. The response was high/low as expected but it was a bit more clearly defined and obvious than on the Axiom. Digging that response all day. Raising the coil about 1" resulted in a very iffy response.
The 13" deep 5 gram US nickel also sounded a bit sharper and clearer than the Axiom, but the overall high/low response actually seemed to have less volume/signal strength.
The nickel at 18" did not have a broad response like the Axiom. It was very short and faint, but clearly something under the coil. Much softer response than the Axiom.
The 5.7 gram US quarter had a similar response at 18" with just a quick rising tone above the threshold.
Deus 2 using its 9" coil running FMF Goldfield, no Disc IAR, sensitivity 95, reactivity 2, audio response 4 could barely hit the 9" deep 0.5 gram gold coin and I mean barely. Without headphones, I would not have heard that response or even looked at the display for a possible target iD response. Understandably, it could not hit any of the deeper targets. No mode could hit them. I expected that so no surprise.
Once again, the Axiom really held its own against a fine pulse induction detector like the GPX 4000 setup similarly.
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